1049/The (Redacted) Happened To You

The (Redacted) Happened To You
Date of Scene:	27 January 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	Following 1041, Kyouka goes to her counterpart, Fuyuko, about Hotaru's dangerous state. Considering Kyouka is bleeding from the face, Fuyuko has some questions.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Its evening, with the sun already set behind the tall buildings of Mitakihara but orangey light spilling between them. There's clouds overhead- looks like rain though nothing is falling yet. The air is chilly with the promise of a cold winter night. And somebody is standing on Fuyuko's balcony.

    This might be concerning, since the balcony is on the 11th story and has no form of exterior access. It might be less concerning when it turns out the person is Kyouka. Or maybe it's even more concerning.

    She's not in henshin, in her usual jeans/sweater and leather jacket combo. The thing which stands out is that she has a fresh slice under her left eye along her cheekbone.

    It's not a serious wound, as these things go, a couple inches long and pretty shallow. But it's deep enough to bleed down the side of her face, a trail of blood to her chin which has dripped onto the collar of her jacket.

    Grimfaced, she marches up to the balcony door and wrenches it open (or tries, anyway, if its locked she'll bang on it.)

    "Fuyuko! We need to talk."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It's evening, and Fuyuko is home, sitting on her couch with a throw blanket, musing playing from her television as she browses alerts on her phone. A notice has gone out on the company boards and through company inboxes, declaring Hotaru Tomoe a missing person.

Interesting. Pitiful, perhaps. She's only met the girl once, so Fuyuko's personal investment is low and her concern about the same, but still - it's not every day one of your colleague's loses their kid.

If anyone asked her - and fortunately, they haven't - she'd half-heartedly suggest that the girl just ran off to join Kyouka's goody-two shoes gang, but -

This is when the balcony door is wrenched open.

The balcony's in Fuyuko's bedroom, but apartment is small and the sound of Kyouka's harsh voice echoes. It's mere seconds before Fuyuko is in the door of her bedroom, a scowl on her face and harsh words on her tongue. "What the hell -"

She falters at the sight of Kyouka. She obviously hasn't come because of the wound. It's a scratch. It might not even scar.

"What happened?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    The wound is superficial and Kyouka has had far worse, which Fuyuko has been witness to first hand. It might need stitches, but if she was concerned about that she would have gone to the local clinic, not to this apartment.

    She steps in, a scowl on her face. She doesn't linger in the bedroom, instead just walking forward and pushing past Fuyuko to get into the main part of the apartment. "Do you have beer? This calls for beer." She mutters, as she goes over to the fridge without waiting for an answer, pulling the door open.

    As she looks inside, she says over her shoulder, "One of your brats came up to me in an alleyway and asked me to kill her, because she's losing control and is a danger."

    Still holding the fridge door open, she turns and looks back at Fuyuko. "She's right. I didn't do it, of course. But I seriously considered it after she gave me this nick."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Beers in the back of the fridge," Fuyuko says, not so much amused as tolerant, stepping back to allow Kyouka to pass. She's done worse to Kyouka, so she knows the other woman can handle it -

"Let me guess - it was Tomoe-san?"

Sounds like she was half-right on the money.

"Her father sent out a company alert because she's missing. If she's such a danger, why didn't you do it?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka grabs one of the beers, then quirks a brow at Fuyuko, her way of asking if the other woman wants one. If so, she'll pass it over, if not, shut the door and crack her own, taking a long swig before she answers.

    "Because she's a fucking kid, Fuyuko. And she's been lied to and abused and she doesn't deserve to die for it." This is the immediate answer, delivered in a heartfelt tone of conviction.

    That falters a moment later though, and Kyouka's ash-grey eyes look to the side, avoiding Fuyuko. "And.. I'm honestly not sure I actually could have. I mean.. she was strong. She did this-" she gestures to the wound on her face- "through my shields. I was doing everything I could to stop her and she still got through. If she hadn't regained control of herself at the last second, I'd be missing an eye, assuming I wasn't just dead."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Fuyuko will take a beer. She paid for them, and more importantluy, this is obviously the kind of conversation that calls for a beer. Once in her hand, she cracks it open, takes a sip, and doesn't spit the first venomous words to come to mind.

"Not nearly as lied to as you'd think," she says instead of addressing anything else, and she waits, patient.

Her calm demeanor falters, just a touch, when Kyouka admits the truth - that she cut her through the shields, overpowered her.

"Tomoe? That little -" but it's a useless question. Kyouka didn't lie and didn't believe in sparing anyone the truth. She purses her lips, brows furrowed. "You says she claimed to be losing control? And she went after you - because you tried to kill her as asked or because you didn't?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Because I tried to convince her that she could beat it on her own." Kyouka says, grimacing, taking another swig of beer. She leans on the counter as she talks. "I mean, I maybe pulled a knife.. I was just trying to scare her a little. She came up to me all 'kill me before I hurt someone else' sorta thing. I was trying to do a 'are you sure this is what you want' act, you know? Pull the knife, scare her a little, then say 'you have what it takes to do better'."

    "Whatever is camping out inside her didn't like that."

    "In my prime, sure, maybe I could have taken her. Now? Not a chance. But more importantly, she cut through my shields. You know how tough that is to do, especially with nothing but a mundane knife."

    She takes another swig of beer before continuing. "And she looked.. psychotic. Like she was having the time of her life trying to stab me in the face. That's why I came here, Fuyu-chan. This girl is dangerous. Not just to my kids. To everybody. I have no idea what she's going to do but it doesn't benefit either of us if she goes crazy and starts offing random people in the middle of the city. She was wandering around by herself earlier today. Nobody kidnapped her. She ran because she's afraid she's going to lose control and she didn't want to be home when she did."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Fuyuko listens in grim silence, letting the words spillow out and taking note of every expression that crosses Kyouka's face. Her own is shuttered, expression purposefully blank.

"I never thought she was - I assumed she was running to your side." Only partially right. "If she's could get through your shields, she'll get through my void too. No point in going after her to finish the job myself... any of your kids up to the job?"

There's tension in her shoulders and a hardset to her mouth that prove what a lie her casual tone and words are. She doesn't like the idea of killing off some twelve year old either, and particularly not because of what was surely some Obsidian made problem.

"If they aren't going to kill her, we're going to need to fix her - permanently or otherwise; she's got a gaggle of little friends in Obsidian, but if they could contain this, they would have. Any of your punks good for - fixing people?"

She grimaces at Fuyu-chan, but doesn't tell her off.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I don't even know if that's what she wants." Kyouka says, in response to 'running off to your side'. "She's real attached to people there, her daddy not least of all. I've been.." She has the good sense to look somewhat ashamed, "Cultivating something of a friendship with her because she tells me things. Stuff going on in Obsidian. It's been useful." She rushes to add, "But also because she genuinely needed a friend who wasn't just out to use her for whatever power she had."

    "That's why she came to me at all. Do I know anyone up to the job of handling this? Maybe. I'm not sure. That's the problem."

    She puts the beer down, finally seeming to notice that her face is still dripping blood. Glancing around, she finds the ubiquitous paper towel roll and rips a sheet off, dampening it in the sink before dabbing at her face as she talks. "The problem is I don't know what we're dealing with here. There's.. another being inside her, like it possesses her. She claims she's been holding it off, bottling it up for years, but when I asked what 'it' was, she said she didn't even know."

    She levels her gaze at Fuyuko. "I was hoping you knew. Or could find out. Step one to dealing with the situation is finding out what we're dealing with."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Sounds like you need help from an ear inside Obsidian after all," Fuyuko says, as calm as if she hadn't chucked her phone off an 11th floor balcony (and then teleported to the ground to catch it before it fell) after a fight in part about this very topic. If she were a better person she wouldn't make a dig about this at all, but if she were a better person she'd be living in some shoebox apartment on the edge of town.

"You're not doing anything with the girl her other friends likely aren't," she says dismissively, "Getting information she's happy to share is probably more honest than what half of them do."

She taps her chin...

"If she's had this problem for years, there's got to be some kind of paper trail; in a place like this someone would want to use that kind of power. Tomoe LifeSciences is a better place to start than most - I'll see what I can find from what records of theirs I can access. Daddy dearest is looking for her though - and Tomoe-san is the most coddled child in Obsidian..." so she has her doubts that Dr. Tomoe is doing anything to harm his child.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "What I need," Kyouka says, shooting a glare at her erstwhile friend from over the wet towel she is still dabbing her face with, "is for you to remember that you're a more decent person than you pretend to be. Anyway, as much as we may not share... moral philosophy these days, I know that some kid going nuclear and slaughtering half of downtown would be as much of a problem for you as it would be for me."

    "At least if there's no profit in it." This last part muttered under her breath.

    "Besides you know the Boss," eyes glance upwards, referring to the omnipresent eye in the sky, "put us here specifically to deal with situations which tip the balance. This feels like it might be one of those."

    Her eyes return to Fuyuko as the other woman says she'll look into Tomoe LifeSciences. "I don't know if this sort of thing would be in official records, but I guess any lead is better than none. Just.. I don't think we have a lot of time on this one. Whether we can solve the problem, or just buy time... something needs to be done quick."

    She hesitates a moment, then looks away again. "Thanks."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
A roll of the eyes at the decent person comment, and a slow exhale. "I'll agree with you on that. A downtown slaughter wouldn't exactly be good for corporate-public relations."

She can't just acknowledge moral limits, that's not what she does!

"It's got the potential, that's for sure. All she has to do is kill a few too many on either side and the balance bounces until we find more of the little brats popping out of the woodwork." Nipping this in the bud is the best thing they can do. The problem is - how? Tomoe-san being that close to the edge and strong enough to break through Kyouka's shields was a bad sign for the city, and her best leads were the father and the brother-figure.

"I don't expect a magic bullet, but - the kid has bad health, and some magic power fighting her for control? For years? The one could be related to the other. And the parent that works in medical technology and science just might have taken a look into whatever's been screwing over his bouncing baby girl."

The beer is rased to her lips, drain is slow glugs.

"Don't mention it."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka finishes wiping off her face. The cut still looks nasty, but at least she doesn't look like she just stepped out of a slasher flick anymore. She tosses the bloody paper towel in the trash, then picks up her beer and drains it, adding it to the recycling bin. Always sort your trash kids.

    "I'm sure the two are related. Or rather, I'm not sure she's actually dying at all. At least not in the way she seems to think. I'm half-convinced that's just a story they're feeding her to keep her under control. Of course, if this monster inside takes over her body or whatever, I guess that's as good as dying for her. But I have a feeling that's not the way it's being represented to her."

    Kyouka makes a face. "I don't know though, that's just supposition based on my conversations with her. The whole thing feels dirty to me, but I can't claim to have anything other than hunches."

    "I don't want to have to kill her." She says, at last. "But if it comes to that, I want to know that there's really no other choice."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Oh, is it suddenly too much to ask for someone to die for the greater good? Does it matter if she wants to die if it will save lives? Isn't that why you thought he made the right choice?

But the harsh, angry words don't fall. There are more important things than the same endless argument, the one they'll never agree on, the one her oldest friend will never bend in regards to.

And it was ever so slightly different, this time. There was time, still, to talk about it, to think it through.

"There is something genuinely wrong with her, besides this. She's got a medical history a mile long - I might not have access to the file, but every company event sees a list of restrictions and requirements HR has to be sure to abide by so little Tomoe can participate safely. Most of it's practical, which makes me think it isn't just magical psychosis."

She doesn't say anything about killing her. If it comes down to it, more than likely it won't be either of them who get to make the call. Their own personal eye in the sky keeps the leash tight - the burden would fall on the younger generation, just as it always did.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Maybe Kyouka can sense that Fuyuko wants to start the fight again. Have the same argument for enough years, and you can read it in a facial expression, or a look in the eyes, without words having to be spoken. Maybe that's why she looks especially grateful when Fuyuko decides not to speak the words out loud.

    Because this is different. Maybe nobody has to die this time.

    Maybe. That's what she needs to find out.

    "Yeah, but couldn't that just be like.. a cover? You can put anything you want in a medical history if you're the doctor. Oh she has this problem, she needs these meds.. it could all be bullshit." That distrust of authoritty runs deep in Kyouka, but she sighs. "I guess it doesn't matter if it's real or not though. If she dies of heart failure or something, that sucks, but its still better than her losing it and going on a rampage that kills who knows how many other people."

    "I'm just.. not used to feeling at a loss. But right now I'm not sure where to go with this one."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"It could be a lie," Fuyuko admits easily. "We both know there are people who lie as easily as they breathe, that there are those who wouldn't hesitate to lie, cheat, and kill even their own child when it came to ambition and power. But I do believe Hotaru Tomoe is an ill child. I do believe her father - cares. Given Obsidian's usual tactics, I think it'd be more likely that he'd have raised the girl to be loyal and powerful, instead of sickly, sweet, and spoiled."

She's not advocating for the goodness in Dr. Tomoe's heart; she doubts any exists, given the Heartstealer Rifles and the cutthroat natures of the Witches 4. But she doesn't see the value in narrowing in on things.

"She attends Radiant Heart - why don't you see if the school nurse has records on her? We can go round and round, but there are other people who might at least know if that's a lie."

With her beer finished, the bottle is swiftly disposed of, tucked into a recycling can on the side of her fridge.

"You've always hated problems you couldn't solve with punching or stabbing."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka considers Fuyuko's words... and considers what she knows about the way Hotaru's father has treated her. Cares? It doesn't seem that way to her. At least, not as a person. Maybe as an asset.

    It's a lot easier to lie to an asset.

    "Unless he's worried that he can't control her." She says, finally. "The illness thing could be a leash, because he's afraid without it he couldn't compel her loyalty. I'm not kidding when I say she was powerful, Fuyuko. Powerful and not in control. It's a dangerous combination... unless you're holding some kind of kill switch."

    She shakes her head a little- not a denial, just doubt that it's going to help. "You're not wrong- I'll ask Setsuna-san, the nurse, if she knows anything. But that's not really going to solve the problem either way. Information is valuable, but its not a solution."

    That last bit hits a little too close to home. She scowls. "Maybe that's why this gig rubs me the wrong way so much."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"It could be a leash," Fuyuko acknowledges, "And it might be. People love their dogs; they stilll keep them on a leash. Maybe it's the same for the Tomoe's. I believe you, about her power, but I don't know if there is a solution, if you can't kill her. Not unless you want me tipping off her father, so he can find a solution."

She already knows the answer to that; there's no way in hell Kyouka is going to be thrilled with the idea of getting Dr. Tomoe involved before they absolutely have to.

"Doesn't anyone on your side have anything to - seal away darkness, or something stupid and fantastical like that?" She's being flippant about it, but, she doesn't have any solutions to offer, here.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I have a feeling her father is already well aware." Kyouka says, sounding resigned. "After all, you said there was an alert out that she was missing. Maybe he doesn't know exactly what's going on, but he's got to be looking for her already. Whether he loves her or she's just a tool, he's not going to let her slip away so easily. Not with that kind of power, controlled or not."

    "Probably." She shrugs in response to the question. "I mean, that seems like something someone would do." She's thinking of Wako-chan in particular. "But I don't know if that sort of thing is going to work this time. It seems.. insufficient."

    She sighs, pushing off the counter. "Anyway. I don't expect you to have a solution. I just wanted to warn you. The more eyes on this, the better, I think. Frankly, I don't want to see your guys get their hands on her again- but I'd much prefer that to her being loose and out of control."

    It's a sad fact, but sending the child back to captivity is still preferable to a rampage that leaves who knows how many corpses in the street.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"He knows she's missing; he doesn't know where she is. You can't keep her away forever, but if you do hit on a solution, I'll try and distract them while you work on it. I'd rather they not bring an unstable child with unreasonable amounts of power into my place of work." It's a dry delivery, but an honest offer - it is better for all of them if this problem could just... go away.

Permanently or not.

"You're not wrong about her being able to tip the balance. If she goes around slaughtering the ~forces of light~ or the ~forces of dark~ as the Eye in the Sky would call it, we'll both be out of a job. For better and worse we've got the same goals on this one."

She nods towards the balcony once Kyouka pushes herself into a standing position. "If you're heading out the way you came, take another beer and close the doors behind you."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I don't know where she is either!" Kyouka points out. "She stabbed me and ran away. I didn't go chasing her.. not yet. I don't have a good way to deal with her if I caught her."

    As Fuyuko offers to distract them, Kyouka gives her a look. The other woman can probably tell what she wants to say this time. Something along the lines of 'I knew you were still a hero, stop pretending to be a bad guy'. She's said it before when Fuyuko has unironically offered to help her. Its never ended well. So she doesn't say it. Out loud.

    "We seem to have the same goals a lot, despite ostensibly being enemies." She says instead, with a mildly sarcastic tone. Which basically amounts to the same thing, only less directly. She doesn't hesitate to take another beer when offered. "Goodnight, Fuyuko." She says, her voice slightly sad instead. "And thanks."

    And she's just... gone. Right from the kitchen. No need for a balcony- that was just her being polite.